


[Translation]The Sadfic Manifesto

by selstarry



Category: Fandom - Fandom, Original Work
Genre: Angst, Essays, Gen, Meta, Tragedy, Translation, also holy shit these sadfic premises I've never seen in English, chinese to english translation, universal fandom phenomena
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-25
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2019-03-23 13:09:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13788417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/selstarry/pseuds/selstarry
Summary: Originally a blogpost written in Chinese in response to a rather uncharitable Fluff Fic Manifesto. As the author warns, don't like, don't read.





	[Translation]The Sadfic Manifesto

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [虐文党宣言](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/359550) by 北邙山下尘. 



> Translated with permission of the author. The original is posted at: http://lightlord.lofter.com/post/25a445_f3dd98d

My friends, I love sadfic.

My friends, I really love sadfic.

My friends, I really, truly love sadfic.

I love childhood friends who turn on each other. I love love at first sight with someone unworthy of it.

I love mutual pining that dies softly in its sleep. I love mutual understanding that breaks down when forced into words.

I love ten fingers interlaced with the thought that something is missing. I love gazes meeting between two who nurse dark intentions.

I love the weave of lips and tongue, countenances close and souls distant. I love the weave of body and body, dreaming different dreams in the same bed.

In history and present, in China and beyond, in the five lakes and four seas, above heaven and below earth, in all dimensions and directions, a tragedy of any premise and any setting, if written well, will have my love.

I love comrades in the same camp whose clash of ideals eventually take them separate ways, who will give no mercy even if they meet again on the duelist's field.

I love opponents in different camps who privately admire each other, perhaps even consider each other their soulmates, but will not so much as wrinkle their brow before condemning the other to death.

I love those who seek an ideal together. When the dream shatters, they take each others' hands, and smile, and stride toward death with their heads held high.

I also love those who seek an ideal together. When the dream is made reality, they find they cannot share riches and honor like they shared hardship. Their personal interactions are laden with regrets; only their great work is eternal.

I love one who seeks and cannot obtain, who drowns their unspeakable, unrequited love at the bottom of their heart.

I  also love one who seeks and cannot obtain, who discovers after force and trickery that the fruit that must be wrenched off the vine is not sweet.

I love one who seeks and _does_ obtain, and finds that even a respectful, harmonious marriage is not enough to satisfy them.

I also love one who seeks and does obtain, only for the months and years to grind away all passion, and the initial halcyon days.

I love facing down the world for the one you love, two ants crushed shoulder to shoulder under the wheels of history's chariot.

I also love abandoning the one you love for the world-- to embrace ten thousand miles of rivers and mountains, and a solitude without end.

I love those who get together only to suffocate under the business of kindling and rice and oil and salt, no longer the prince and princess from fairytales.

I also love a Cinderella who marries into high status and forgets that she was once humble and kind.

I love birds-of-a-feather who flaunt their mutual too-sharpness and cut each other bloody all over.

I also love opposites-attract who once fit together like jewels in gold, only to give and shatter under the pressure of time.

I love birds of the same forest who fly for themselves when disaster strikes.

I also love fish in the drained pond, wetting each others' gills with the foam from their mouths, who will someday forget each other amid the rivers and lakes.

I love fire and glory, living and dying with the splendor of summer flowers-- brief, yet it arrests the eyes of men.

I also love the ordinary one, who leaves behind but chicken-feather trivialities that no one asks after, who uses their long and humdrum life to witness other people's stories.

I simply love doing as Mencius said to my and others' characters:   _torment_ _his spirit and will, toil his muscles and bones, starve his body, empty his pockets, throw into chaos his undertakings._

This is all in order to _rouse his mind and temper his nature_ , to press from their every crevice that which intoxicates me--  


The radiance of human nature.

Anyone can follow the current down. Only those brave enough to rise against the current can awe me to my soul.

My friends, if the above words resonate with you, if you've had enough of that cloying so-called fluff, then:

Whip out your files and start banging on your keyboard.

Opening sadfics reward the bold/ Reading will teach you guys/ Others may hug their honeypots/ I have a pen that can slice.  


Everyone likes what they like. I won't grab someone by the hair and force them to accept the things I like, and I won't call people with other interests weak or shallow.

I just want to say a little something on a screen covered in white sugar, to let my fellow fans know: we are not freaks, and we are not alone. That's it. 

After all, we have the saying--

_ I only ask to have once had, I do not ask for always. _

_In life, must we seek completion? In death, we all meet again._


End file.
